The most telling aspect of the debate over Albuquerque's proposed living wage ordinance, up for referendum early next month, is how little honest public debate is actually taking place

By Joseph Crumb

A proposal to increase the minimum wage in Albuquerque to $7.50 per hour and the hourly wages of tipped employees to $4.50 will appear on the Oct. 4 municipal ballot. Proponents say this measure could lift some 30,000 to 40,000 people in our city out of poverty and that passage of the law is a moral and economic imperative.

A brief primer on the art of the fallacy

By Joseph Crumb

It was in Ancient Greece during the fifth century BC that rhetoric—the art of public speaking—began to be taught in the ancient cities of Athens and Syracuse as the need arose for citizens to argue effectively and persuade their fellows in the jury courts and political assemblies. Rhetoric was also used on ceremonial occasions such as funeral orations. The study of rhetoric involved the use of different types of arguments. The appeal to reason involved the use of logic, and Aristotle was the first to formalize this discipline.